


The Lost Princess

by Tommykaine



Series: I contain multitudes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Angst, Backstory, Canon Autistic Character, Challenge Response, Crossdressing (nonsexual), Introspection, M/M, No Sex, Pedophilia, Roleplaying Character, copying and reposting this work elsewhere without my permission is strictly forbidden!, if you are looking for a happy time this is not the story for you, there is no sexual content but be mindful of the warnings, this is a sad story of unfortunate circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 17:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17944124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommykaine/pseuds/Tommykaine
Summary: All children eventually grow up, but as for him, Matt had always felt like he never quite fully formed as a person.Not until he had her.Not until she was there for him.And now, once she'd been taken away from him, his entire world had come crashing down on him.----This is a story about unfortunate circumstances.Don't say you weren't warned.





	The Lost Princess

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the 3rd Week of the 9th of the COW-T by LandeDiFandom, using as prompt a quote:
> 
> "All Children, except one, grow up" - JM Barrie
> 
> I wrote this both for the aforementioned fandom challenge & as backstory for a character that I use in a roleplay, but I think it also works as a standalone story.
> 
> Just be warned, it's a fairly unpleasant one.

Other children always have a way of knowing when one of them is different. This much soon became clear to Matt's parents.

“I don't want to play with him”, was a sentence he would hear many times again, but the first time it came out of his brother's mouth. “He's mean. He won't even talk and he screams if I touch his toys!”.

Matthew was then four years old already, yet he still stubbornly refused to speak. At least to everyone else, because he could sometimes be heard repeating things to himself, some of which were hardly words at all.

His mother worried of this. His father, instead, was sure the problem laid in the fact that the kid was lazy and spoiled. Many times he stood in front of Matt, holding his favourite toy just out of his reach and barking at him to stop making such a ruckus or he'd just get rid of it altogether.

“You've got loads of other toys that you won't even play with. Look at this thing! It's old, and it's falling apart”.

“No!”, had been Matthew's only answer , which was also one of the few things he seemed to know how to say.

“Look how dirty this is. At least let your mother wash it”.

“No!”.

“You either let her wash it or it goes in the trash, your choice”.

“No!”.

“ _'No'_ is not an answer, Matthew. What do you want? Wash it, or trash?”.

“No! No!”. It was apparently all that the child could say, in various tones of urgency and alternated with a one-vowel high-pitched screaming. It ended up grating on his father's nerves so much that he would get rid of the toy on principle, so that “at least he will have a good reason to cry”.

Sometimes it was not even proper toys, which pushed his father's patience even further past its limits. He could not fathom the fact that the kid would shriek as if he was being slaughtered just because he took away his candy wrappers or some other kind of worthless trash he had stashed away in his room.

As a result, Matt would become even more possessive and stubborn and refuse to hand over his toys to anyone at all. This did not go over well when he started going to daycare, and no matter how much the women there tried to make him share with the other kids he would not budge an inch.

“You can't keep hoarding Mr. Blueberry, Matthew”.

The only one of them who would persist was an older woman with a soft voice and what seemed like an infinite amount of patience, who was named Annie, but even she could not get through him. Still, sometimes he would at least respond to her with something other than “No”.

“Mister Blueberry Bear”, he would say, clutching the large plush toy tighter and rubbing his face into its soft, dark blue fur. “He knows the Blueberry Song”.

“That's nice. Do you know the Blueberry Song?”.

The woman would sit down next to him, while Matt would start rocking back and forth on the spot, humming to himself. Usually when this happened, the other caretakers would get frustrated and walk away, but not her.

“Matthew, do you know the Blueberry Song?”.

“Hmmh”. Matt would glance up to her, only for a second, then he would nuzzle the toy again and start singing in a soft and shy voice. “Little berries, round and sweet...lovely to pick up and eat...”.

Matt liked Annie. She did not trick him in order to distract him and steal his bear, she did not get angry at him if he did not join in the group games with the other children or did not manage to follow the exercise correctly on their little book. Often his hands would not move quite like he wanted no matter how much he focused, green eyes squeezed with the utmost concentration as he tried to colour inside the lines or connect the right dots. He did not know how the other kids could do it so well, and it made him feel frustrated and sad.

Whenever that happened, Annie would come to him and get him to do something else, like helping her pick up the toys or sing the Blueberry Song to her or tossing crumbs outside and counting how many ants came to pick them up.

Yes, Matt liked Annie, but his parents got angry with her, because she one time came to talk to them and said something about him being a “special boy”, which sounded nice but made his dad really furious. So he did not go to daycare anymore after that, which he was a bit upset about but not too much, as he didn't like to play with the other kids and the other kids didn't like to play with him.

He would have wanted to keep Mr. Blueberry, but he was not allowed to, and his mother told him they'd get one at the toy store but then they could not find the right one. She tried to convince him she did, but he knew that it was false so he quickly got angry. He didn't like to be lied to, and the store was too big and bright and too loud, so loud that it hurt his ears, so he cried until she brought him back home.

His brother sometimes played with him, but not when they were outside. By the time Matt was in elementary school, Jeremy already was at the last year, and if he tried to approach him at school or anywhere outside then he would get angry with him and push him away, blushing bright red as his friends laughed at the scene.

“You should be kinder to him, he's your brother”, his mother sometimes tried to argue, but Jeremy scoffed.

“I don't want my friends to know that he's a retard”.

“Jeremy! Don't you call your brother that!”

“That's what Denny said. He doesn't want to come play here because of him”.

Jeremy had spoken in a resentful tone and then glared at Matt, who was looking down and shifting his weight from one let to the other, humming softly to himself. At first glance he did not seem to be paying attention to the conversation, but his movements had sped up as he heard his brother talk about his friend.

Matt wasn't sure of what “retard” meant but he knew it was a bad word because his dad used it when he was angry with him and the other kids used it when they didn't want him around and it was always said with such a disgusted, spiteful tone. He didn't know, but he didn't like it, so he did not want to hear.

He was talking more now that he was older, but what he said did not always make sense even when he was responding to someone else's questions. This was often a source of frustration with the teachers, though his classmates seemed to find it funny.

Once his mother came to pick him up early and found the other kids around him, asking him things and laughing when he just repeated random words they said or when he blurted out weird things, repeating them back to him and laughing some more. She got really angry then. She dragged him away and went to find the teacher, and then yelled at him in his office, while Matt sat in a corner and hummed as loud as he could to cover up the harsh noise, hitting his head against the wall until his mother dragged him away.

He did not understand why she was angry, but while she drove him home and told him not to let the other children make fun of him like that and to tell the teacher. He did not understand but she said that she would “handle it”. Then she called the parents of the other kids and also got angry with them, and then his classmates no longer found him that funny, but they would move away if he got close and write mean things on his desk and throw pieces of eraser and other things at him.

Seeing this, Matt did not want his mom to “handle it” again and make it even worse, so he kept silent and didn't say anything. Once she found out, she got even angrier and tried to get his dad to do “something about it” too, but the man didn't seem to want to get involved.

“If you keep coddling him and holding his hand for every little thing, he's never going to grow a spine. If he wants them to respect him he should man up and solve it himself”, was his conclusion.

One way or the other, his mom tried to find a way to get them to stop picking on him, but nothing seemed to work. As for Matt, he mostly tried to keep to himself and do his own thing, albeit that didn't stop the other kids from targeting him and making his dread every morning in which he had to go to school. The worst was when they'd steal his things, which never failed to get him to panic and scream and cry, but the more he cried the more they seemed to have fun.

That went on for a long time, but once they stole and broke his favourite pen, and he got so angry he grabbed the kid who did it and kept on hitting him against the wall and screaming until the teacher came and pulled him back so he would stop. Matt screamed even more then, not wanting to be touched and much less to be kept still by someone much bigger than him. He tried to hit him too, so more teachers came and held him down by force, until he had no choice but to collapse in a puddle of his own sweat and angry tears.

That was when Matt first had to see a doctor. He knew he had gotten in big trouble, because an ambulance came and the kid had to “get stitches”, and then his parents had to pay money and apologize to the kid's parents, and then Matt could not go to school for a while.

His mom was embarrassed and angry with him, but his dad was actually sort of happy to learn that he fought back. At least at first he was.

When the doctor then visited Matt and told him their son had “development issues”, he too got angry and accused the doctor of malpractice. However, the school would not let Matt come back unless “his condition was being dealt with”, so he eventually caved in and agreed that his son should “get help”.

From then on, things got very uncomfortable for Matt. He hated the doctor because he told his parents to make him eat his food even if he refused because it felt disgusting and made him feel like throwing it back up, which he often did, and he also told them to make him wear the clothes he hated because they itched a lot, and he was forced to sit down and not move his legs or shake his arms around and not make noise with his mouth.

The doctor also wanted him to talk, or rather to repeat the sort of things he wanted him to say, and to look at him in the eyes as he said them, and if he looked away the man would not let him leave or have his toys back until he did.

He also had to have a special teacher with him at school, who would scold him if he did those things that he should not, and if he did not do as he was told.

Matt was very angry with the kid who broke his pen, since it was his fault if he got punished! If he had not broken his pen then he would not have gotten angry and hit him, and then he would not have had to stay there in the doctor's office and repeat what the man told him to say and look at him in the eyes and let him hug him before leaving, no matter how much he hated it.

He also was angry with the doctor of course, but if he did not listen to him then he would get in trouble, and if he yelled or stomped his feet or tried to cover the sound of his voice his parents would hear about it and he would be without his toys and his cartoons until he “learned to behave”.

  
  


By the time he went on to middle school, Matt was no longer seeing the doctor and did not have a special teacher with him any more.

He still did not get along well with the other kids nor with his brother. He now knew what a “retard” was, as well as a “spastic” and a “moron” and a lot of other words that Jeremy liked to call him whenever they argued. His mother tried to intervene but his brother really didn't care, at least not until Matt snapped and broke his nose.

This time however he did not see a doctor, because his dad decided that instead what he really needed was “discipline”, so he slapped him and pulled on his hair and screamed in his ears until he collapsed whenever something like that happened. He also did that when he was having a “temper tantrum” or when he was being “too stubborn”.

His dad was really angry with the doctor now, because he had been promised that Matt would “fit in” and “be just like the other children”, but that did not happen, and so he felt defrauded.

Still, Matt no longer would start screaming if he was touched and did not hum loudly or walk away if people talked to him for too long. His mom was really happy about that, as she'd always been sad when he wouldn't let her hug him or look at her or when he would try to drown out her voice.

As for what Matt felt, well, nobody really cared to ask.

As much as he'd tried to do as he had learned, the other kids still laughed at him and treated him differently. No matter what, there just seemed to be something he was doing wrong, something just was always off and it was as if the other ones could sense it right away.

If only it could be like maths or informatics, where everything was logical and made sense, then there would be instructions he could follow and the outcome would be the one he desired if he just followed the right steps, but that was not how it worked. Maybe there was some sort of secret manual that only he didn't get and which would explain how to crack the code. There did not seem to be any sort of logic to it, and watching and then doing the same exact things the others did only made them laugh at him or sometimes even get angry. There was something he was missing, but what it was he could not know.

So far, any advice he read or he heard never seemed to help, with the most infuriating one probably being “just be yourself!” - well that was the whole problem! Nobody liked him how he was, and it was no wonder, really, as he also did not really like himself very much.

Since he could not “fit in” with his peers and his brother didn't want to have anything to do with a “retarded spastic” like him, Matt eventually figured that it was useless to keep trying.

He didn't mind too much, in fact if everyone else would just stop bothering him he was sure he'd be fine with pretending they didn't exist. He could do plenty of things on his own anyway, such as watching his favourite cartoons and reading, or playing with the computer, or also learning to take things apart and reassemble them again.

He only had to ignore everyone, forever. How hard could it be?

  
  


  
  


The more time passed, the more isolated Matt was.

It was in the last year of middle school that he found out about anime and manga, and online forums, and pages where you could learn things such as how to write html and create entire websites from scratch.

He avidly spent all his time like that, reading and typing and watching things and discussing his hobbies with strangers while in the safety of his room

By the time he was in high-school, Matt had all but fully shut himself in there and he rarely would come out of it if not for eating and going to school. Well, as for the latter, in fact he tried to avoid it as much he could.

It wasn't so much that he didn't like studying, he didn't even do too badly when he applied himself. It was just he hated having to sit there still for hours knowing he could be at home watching anime instead. Even worse than that though was having to listen to the other teens' inane conversations about shit he didn't care about, or being forced to socialize by well-meaning teachers who insisted in putting him in group projects when he knew he'd do things so much better if he could work alone.

He couldn't get along with the girls, who looked down on him and thought of him as a “gross nerd”, and much less with boys, who seemed to only care about stuff like football and drinking and parties and, as of later years, girls.

Not that Matt didn't like girls, _in theory_. There were more than a few ones that made his heart flutter, but they all had one things in common: they were all 2D.

Girls, in theory, were sweet and beautiful and cute, and if you knew the right things to say to trigger the right cutscenes, even a loser like him could win the heart of a beautiful, doting girlfriend.

That was in dating sims, at least. In reality, 3D girls were loud and obnoxious and even more confusing to interact with than most people. They would do things like say something only to mean something else entirely and then get angry when he didn't “get the hint”, or pretend to like him to get him to do things for them, like do their homework for them, and then ignore him and act grossed out when he tried to talk to them in public.

There really was no point in even trying, and for what anyway? The thought of having to touch one and be touched by her was frankly kind of terrifying. No, Matt was fine with his 2D girlfriends and as for his other needs, well, he had his imagination and his hand.

  
  


A couple years later, school was almost finished and everything was going good for him, all things considered. With the exception of when he had to leave his room or worse, when his mother insisted in being let in it. That was when she'd yell at him for being in there all day and yet never cleaning up.

At first he had managed to keep her at bay with promises of tidying up soon, really, just after he finished that episode, or when he'd edited that post, or finished his “research he had to do for school”. Except over time she became less and less willing to believe him, so her arguments got angrier and she started to slip in more threats which he would put in action if she got frustrated enough. This he dealt with by trying to make up excuses, and then by outright ignoring her and forcing her out of his room.

Finally, just when he thought he'd managed to get rid of the problem once and for all since she'd stopped nagging him about it, it turned out that she'd taken the matter up to his father. Together, they came up with the idea of limiting his computer use and forcing him to go outside for at least a few hours everyday, to “motivate him” to “do something else with his life” and stop “lazying off all day in front of the computer screen”.

They'd even tried to enlist Jeremy in their schemes, but they hadn't managed to convince him to spend more time with Matt even with the promise of money.

“I'd like to keep my social life, thank you. It's none of my problem if that loser wants to die alone or whatever shit” was all he said on the subject.

  
  


And so, that was how Matt found himself at the local park, sitting under a tree with a backpack full of manga to read and occasionally glaring at the children who shrieked and ran around too close to him as they played.

Staying at home and reading was impossible, as his mother would start complaining that he should be cleaning up or studying instead of wasting time reading comics, while his father would grumble because he was “still reading that shit” since he thought that it was childish and stupid. If he left the house then at least they would be happy he was outside and “being active” or whatever such shit.

He could have gone to the library, but the only one nearby was filled with college students and he didn't like the way they looked at him and whispered as he passed by them, especially the girls. It made him really nervous, plus in that silence he felt too self-conscious about taking out his manga in public. Somehow he was sure that there'd be people staring and laughing at him for reading that stuff, especially since his favourite genre was the kind with magical girls.

The park was louder, but no one seemed to pay attention to him there and as long as he avoided the whole area where the other students liked to hang out together then he wouldn't have to worry about anyone from his school spotting him and giving him grief.

The section he was in was mostly occupied by children, which he wasn't a great fan of but at least they didn't care for him. He could ignore them (when they weren't being too loud, at least) and they could ignore him, and everyone would be happy.

That was, at least, until _she_ came along.

  
  


She was wearing a red summer dress with black polka dots, which made her look a bit like a ladybug. Her hair was long and slightly wavy, of a fairly dark brown but with a reddish tinge to it.

She was staring at Matt in silence, making him feel nervous and oddly intimidated.

“Uhm, h-hello? A...are you... lost?”, he asked, but she gasped and ran away immediately, which made him scrunch up his face and huff in annoyance.

Whatever. He didn't go there to talk with random children in the first place. He was there to read his manga in peace. So, good riddance.

That was what he thought, at least, and then the next day he was there reading again when he heard footsteps approaching. Looking up, he was surprised to see the ladybug-like girl again, standing in front of him in silence while pulling on the hem of her dress.

“What do you want?”, he asked, sounding more harsh than he had intended, but her presence was making him nervous. He didn't know how to talk to girls and he didn't like that she kept staring at him, but then he noticed that she was not actually staring at him but rather at his backpack next to him. Specifically, at the keychain that he had attached to it.

“Do you like Sailor Moon?”, she finally asked, smiling at him while her arms kept fidgeting with her dress.

Matt thought that it was a very bizarre question. If he did not like it, why would he have a keychain of it? Still, she didn't seem to want to make fun of him, so after a few moments of hesitation he nodded.

“Yeah. I like... Sailor Mercury”.

The girl's eyes lit up. They were the same exact color as her hair, brown and reddish-tinged, which Matt found quite unusual.

“I like Sailor Jupiter!” she said, then she looked at the comic that he was reading, noticing the girl on the cover. “Is... is that Sailor Moon?”.

“Uhm, not really. It's... well it's a _maho shoujo_ too, but it's called Magical Miracle Shiori”, he explained, pulling the comic book closer to himself as if he worried she would try to snatch it away. However, what the girl did next was not any less puzzling to him, as she decided to seat herself in his lap without any warning.

“Can you read it to me?”.

The sudden contact almost gave him a heart attack, but after a few moments he managed to catch his breath as his heart stopped pounting.

“That's... that's not-”. He interrupted himself, seeing her hopeful expression as she turned to look at him. He swallowed loudly. “I-it's not even the first... it's in the middle of the story a-and...uhhh...”. His words died down as he saw her pouting.

“Read it to me, please!”. She insisted, then she tilted her head a bit. “Uhm, what is your name?”

“I...M-Matthew... b-but...”

“Read it to me, please, Mattie!”

She couldn't quite pronounce his name, and for some reason Matt found that to be cute. He usually couldn't stand children, they were noisy and ran around a lot and made him feel overwhelmed. This girl, however, she was quiet and did not try to grab his things or anything like that. Her soft weight on him was a bit distressing but not entirely unpleasant, mostly it was the unexpectedness of it that had weirded him out at first.

Reluctantly, he flipped the pages back to the beginning and started reading out loud, stuttering a lot and sweating nervously, his foot subtly bouncing in place and his hand grasping on a patch of grass to keep it still except for when he had to turn a page.

“That's the bad guy”, she said after a while, pointing her finger towards one of the monsters. She'd been keeping it in her mouth so he was nervous at the thought of her touching the page and getting drool all over it, but she did not try to.

“Yeah...”, he said, unsure of what she was even getting about the story. It was not a particularly mature one, in fact it was aimed more at middle-schoolers than someone of his age, but he wondered if she even was old enough to _be_ in school yet.

“M-mi..”, she said, squinting her eyes and sitting up higher in his lap, putting her hair right underneath his nose. It smelled of strawberries, and it was such a nice smell that he couldn't help but lean in more and take a small sniff. “Mi..ra..mira...c...c... mirac...uuh...”.

“Miracle,” he said, realizing she was trying to read the heroine's attack. “It's _'Miracle Beam'._ Ok?”.

“Miracle Beam!”, she repeated in an excited tone, then she got up and put her hands in the same pose as Shiori – the protagonist from the manga. “Miracle Beam! Tzum! Tzum!”.

“I-it's not a space ray!”, Matt immediately complained. “It doesn't go _'tzum!'_ ”.

“Miracle Beam, _tzum!_ ”, she insisted, turning towards him as she repeated the pose and the call. “Now you are dead, bad guy!”

Matt opened his mouth to argue, but then he sighed and laid down on the grass.

“Oh no, I am defeated, curse you Shiori-chan!”, he said in a monotone voice, feeling increasingly awkward about the whole thing. He told himself he should have ignored her, but she looked so happy and hopeful and somehow he felt bad at the thought of telling her to go away. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn't been so rude and so aggressive like most other kids would. Plus when she had started to imitate Shiori, his heart had started to beat faster somehow.

“Mattie, get up. I want to continue the story”.

“B-but I am the bad guy, and I am dead”.

“ _Miracle Beam, tzum!_ You are good now! Now read the story please!”.

“That's not how it-”. He bit his tongue and sighed, then pulled himself up. “Fine”.

He continued reading the whole thing to her, and despite his stuttering and the fact that he felt ridiculous she didn't seem to mind at all, so he slowly started to relax and even tried to make voices for some of the characters.

“Where did Shiori-chan go?”, the girl asked once he'd gotten through the entire volume, with a certain concern in her voice.

“I don't...I don't know. I don't have the next one yet”.

“But the book is finished?”. She seemed confused and doubtful, as if she thought that he was playing some kind of trick on her.

“It's not a book. It's a...”. He interrupted himself, realizing she probably would not understand much about manga and anime and all that sort of thing. “It's like with Sailor Moon. You have to wait for the next one to know. Ok?”.

“Oh”. That seemed to convince her. “Ok. Tomorrow?”

“No not- it's not that fast. It comes out next month”.

She furrowed her eyebrows. “How many days is that?”

“Thirty”.

She gasped and frowned at him as if that was somehow his fault.

“That's too many!”.

“I...”. He hesitated. “I have... more of this at home. This is the fifth volume. I could... bring another one here... tomorrow? Ok?”.

He didn't know why he said that. Maybe because she had looked so disappointed. He didn't like to share but it was the first time someone didn't make fun of him for reading that sort of thing, even if she was just a little kid. Plus it had been... it had actually been _fun_ to read it with her. He normally hated to read things out loud because he knew he sounded weird and he wasn't good at talking and since he couldn't move his hands or his legs too much his voice ended up shaking from the tension as he held himself back. The professors always scolded him for it and his classmates would laugh at him and mimick him in order to mock him. However this girl honestly seemed to like to listen to him.

“ _She'll probably forget all about it tomorrow”_ , he thought to himself as he saw her run off somewhere, probably to get back to her friends or her parents. He didn't know why he felt so... disheartened at the idea.

He thought back to when she got up and posed, and his heart skipped a beat.

He wasn't sure why.

  
  


Sure enough, the next day that same girl was there, once again approaching him shyly before gathering the courage to talk and ask if he would read for her.

Matt had not actually expected her to show up, but he still had brought his first volume along with his other things that he had intended to read.

Her sweet scent enveloped him as she sat in his lap again, and her dress sometimes brushed against his arms when he moved them to turn the pages, or when she shifted her weight. Whenever he glanced on her face, she had an intent expression as she listened to him and watched the pictures.

“Why does she run away?”.

“Because of the bad guy, see?”

“Kill the bad guy! Miracle Beam!”

“She doesn't- she can't do that yet.”

“Why not?”

“She needs to learn how to use her powers”.

“Just do it like this!”, she got up and posed. “Miracle Beam! Miracle Beam!”.

Matt felt a bit frustrated, but it was also kind of cute how she acted as if the heroine of the story could hear her, so he couldn't help but smile.

“You are very good”, he said, waiting for her to sit back down before he could continue. The sun was shining on her hair as she stood in front of him, making its edges glow like a halo. Matt felt his throat dry up and his heart swell up, it was so beautiful! Before he could even think of what he was doing, his hand was sliding through the soft, reddish-tinged hair, marvelling at the silky-soft feeling under his fingers.

“No!”

The sudden yelp and the slap on his wrist caught him off guard, making him withdraw his hand, but the damage was done. The girl was backing away and staring at him with wide eyes, which were quickly filling up with tears.

“Ah... I-I didn't...”. He got up too but that only seemed to scare her even more. Before he could even try to stop her or call out to her, she was already running away.

His heart was sinking as she left, and he could not help but panic at the thought that she might go and tell her parents about the “scary guy who touched her”. Picking up all of his things, he quickly made his way out of the park while his heart hammered in his chest, his ears filling up with whispers as he was convincing himself that surely everyone around him must have seen and be talking of it, that he would be stopped before he could even leave the park to get back to his house.

He ran all the way back as if his imaginary angry crowd was chasing after him, and then he didn't leave his room again for three days, regardless of how much his parents nagged him about it. He was terrified at the thought of going back and seeing that kid waiting for him together with her parents. He didn't want to be forced to see a doctor again, or to get beaten up by his father. He honestly didn't know which option scared him more.

Once he finally gathered the courage to come back, he was so nervous that he could barely focus on reading. Still, in his backpack he still kept the copy of the first volume that they didn't manage to finish.

When she didn't come back he wasn't surprised, and there was even a part of him that was relieved. He didn't need to get into trouble because of her. He didn't know her anyway. In fact he should have stayed away from her in the first place.

Then, one day he came there earlier than usual because his brother had friends over and he didn't want him to be there and “do any of his retarded shit” in front of them. Not that Matt had any inclination to be around them in the first place, given the sort of imbeciles that his brother surrounded himself with. Maybe to seem smarter in comparison. Matt didn't really know nor did it matter to him. He'd gladly “fuck off” all day instead.

By chance, he came across her again on his way to his usual spot. He first was tempted to walk faster and ignore her, but his curiosity stopped him.

She was there with what he first assumed to be her friends, except at a second glance it was already clear that she did not like them. Most importantly, it also quickly became obvious that they did not like her.

As he stopped to watch, he realized that they were passing some sort of thing to each other and taunting her, while she cried angrily and tried to retrieve it from them.

“What's wrong Chrissy, don't you want your dolly back?”

“Come on, here it is! Whoops, too slow!”

“Hey hey Chrissy, this way! There is your dolly.. _ops!_ ”

One of the bullies quite deliberately dropped the doll on the ground and stepped on it, making the other kids laugh.

Matt felt a tight knot in his stomach, his ears buzzing with anger.

“H-hey!”.

The bullies all froze when they saw him, rushing away as soon as they realize they'd gotten caught by someone older. Matt was also frozen there, because he hadn't meant to get involved and now it was too late and he wasn't quite sure of what to do. That girl still seemed scared of him, and she still was crying angrily. Once the boys left, she rushed to pick up her doll, gently wiping the dirt away from its face and attempting to clean her clothes too.

Matt could easily understand her anger, because he too hated when others touched his things and he'd gotten his toys broken or ruined before by his peers. That was why he no longer carried his plushies around, no matter how nice and soft they felt and how reassuring it was to squeeze them and rub his face in them. Maybe that was why he touched her hair the last time, as it also was soft and felt nice like their fur, and it even smelled nice.

“Do you... I-I can read you the story from-from last time? I-if you...if you want...? Ok?”.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him, and Matt was unable to hold her gaze. He clenched his hands on the edges of his shirt to keep them quiet. He did not want to scare her, but it was too late. Maybe she hated him now. Maybe she did not want to be seen with a creepy weirdo like him. He should just go before she called her parents and got him in trouble.

He was already walking away when she ran after him, and unexpectedly took one of his hands in hers, forcing him to disentangle it from his shirt.

“I want to be like Shiori, and Sailor Jupiter”, she said as he walked with her towards his usual spot, his hand sweating profusely in her hold. “Then I can defeat them and save Andy”.

“Is Andy your friend?”.

She looked at him as if he was stupid.

“Andy is my doll”. Then she looked down. “I don't have friends”.

“Oh”.

He didn't know what to say to that. He was confused. Why would such a pretty girl not have friends? She was cute and sweet and she did not move around weirdly and did not stutter or say weird things, so why?

“My sister says to play with the kids here but I don't want to, they are mean! They always make fun of me for my dresses!”.

“Y-your dress is very nice”, he whispered. It was white and had butterflies on it, a lot of butteflies. Matt liked butterflies. They had pretty colours. She also had butterflies on her hairpins and it made him think of her soft hair and how he got her angry the last time, so he felt guilty and looked away.

“They say I can't wear dresses 'cause I'm a boy and dresses are for girls, but this is _my_ dress! My mom made it for me! It's mine!”.

The words that she was saying, they were not making sense to Matt.

“But you're... a girl?”.

“I'm not!”. Chrissy stiffened and stopped walking, her high-pitched voice getting even higher as she grew angry again.

“B-but you are... I... I mean-”. Matt swallowed hard and looked back at her, anxious about making her upset again. Her cute face, and her dress, and her long strawberry-scented hair that felt like silk... all that couldn't belong a boy, could it? Somehow that idea made him feel... cheated.

As a response, the young girl pulled up her dress with an expression that said “see?” even without words. And Matt turned bright red and quickly looked away, but even if he did he could not ignore the other's boxers and the small but definite bulge that he'd seen in them.

A boy... that cute, sweet girl was a boy? No...how could that be?! Why would a boy be wearing dresses? Or... or have a doll? Why would he look so cute? Why would he made him feel flustered and happy when he was around?

Slowly Matt realized, he was a boy himself but he liked girls' manga, so was it _all_ that weird?

Well, actually it was not much of an argument because he _was_ weird, alright. But still, the other didn't _seem_ weird. Those clothes suited her... him, he guessed, but he couldn't stop thinking of him as “her”. She looked cute like that, not weird. It just seemed natural on her. And it didn't change... it didn't change how he felt towards her. Maybe that was the part that bothered him the most.

Still, he truly felt a sense of kinship with that kid now. She had no friends, like him, and in a way she was weird too and others treated her differently because of it. So maybe... maybe she could understand him too.

His lips curved into a smile as he started reading to her again. He did not touch her hair again, nor did he touch her doll. However after they were done with the volume she was the one who insisted for him to play with her and Andy, and he found out a little more about her. Like that her full name was “Christopher Callaghan”, and she lived nearby with his parents and his sister, who was supposed to babysit her but instead she spent her time hanging out with her friends who were probably around Matt's own age from what he could gather.

“I... I can stay with you. I don't have friends either”, he suggested, which seemed to make her really happy. Especially when he promised to bring more of his volumes and play with her doll if she wanted.

Like that, his visits to the park became much more enjoyable, and the more time he spent with Chrissy the more at ease she was around him. Soon she was even allowing him to pet her hair sometimes, at least if he asked first.

As for him, he was completely enamoured with her. She was the prettiest, most perfect girl that he'd ever met and while he knew that she was not quite a girl that only made her more special to him. So special that he once took all of his courage and suggested her to come with him to watch Sailor Moon at his place, one day, when he knew his parents would be away. He still had a TV in his room so they could watch it there, and his brother would not be able to know what was going on and snitch to his parents.

He eventually managed to convince her, promising that she would be back soon so her sister would not be angry. He knew fully well of how his attachment could have been seen by someone else, even if he did not have anything bad in mind and he was still a minor himself, a strange older boy bringing a small child to his place would still look really suspicious. But he really wanted nothing more than to watch his favourite series together with his special little princess. So it was not too bad, right?

  
  


Their afternoons together continued, and Matt would always look forward to the days in which he could bring her over and not be so anxious about what other people might think.

He knew that they wouldn't understand. He really loved Chrissy, she was his princess, and he would do anything that she wanted him to if he could. They would be forever together and then once she grew up they would marry, and then they would live together and nobody would tell them that they couldn't watch cartoons or read comics everyday because they were “too old for that shit”, or that Chrissy couldn't be a boy and still be a sweet and beautiful princess and wear all the pretty dresses she wanted, or that they had to go outside and “make friends” and “try to fit in”, or that they couldn't cry or “do any of that weird shit” that Matt did but tried hard not to, especially when his father was looking.

She would definitely marry him then, because she had promised him so, and she loved him too. She did not think that he was awkward and weird and a “gross nerd”, even if he was not strong and handsome like the popular guys in his school. Despite all that she still called him her “prince charming”, and now she always let him hug her and pet her hair, and even comb it and braid it sometimes. She did not like if he called her his “girlfriend” because she insisted she was not a girl, but he'd gotten her to accept “princess” by assuring her that boy could be princesses too because boys could do anything that girls could no matter what people said.

Of course, all of this had to be a secret. People would be angry with her, he explained, and they would forbid her to see him if they knew. That outcome seemed very distressing to her, so she was quick to promise to never say anything to anyone else about him or about the time they spent together, and especially about coming to his house.

It wasn't like Matt did not know of how bad it all sounded. He knew it definitely sounded like... but no, it really wasn't like that at all! He did not like children like that, in fact he mostly disliked them as a whole, but his princess was special. She was smart and sweet and unlike any other girl, and she could understand him because she too knew what it was like to be an outcast.

Matt would never do anything bad to her, he could not! In fact, even just thinking about kissing her was so overwhelming that he couldn't handle it, turning into a shaking mess every time it crossed his mind. The one time he actually thought about doing it he kept shaking all day and blabbering things that made almost no sense, scaring her so much that she insisted to go away early. Afterwards he felt very embarrassed about that, so he did his best to push that sort of thoughts away.

That all went well for a while, they both had fun and kept each other company and Matt finally had someone who'd love him no matter what, who didn't care if he was weird and awkward and didn't get angry at him and call him with bad words.

Unfortunately for him, things could not continue like that forever.

  
  


  
The first problem came in the form of Chrissy's sister, who once was really mad with her because she looked for her at the park and she didn't find her. When Matt came back with her, her sister was already calling out for her frantically and he had to pretend she got lost and he was helping her find her way before quickly leaving the scene.

Since then, they had to be a lot more careful because her sister would come and check on her sometimes, and when she couldn't always find her she would get more and more suspicious. Chrissy had to tell lies, and she didn't like to tell lies and it was making her anxious, but Matt insisted as he was scared that she would be taken away from him.

His fear also made him more clingy, his worry of getting caught clashing with his worry that she could go home that day and never be back again, so he kept on making her stay with him for longer and longer, either by distracting her from the time or by arguing his case or by outright pleading her to stay.

His parents had also noticed that something was different about him, with his mother cheerfully guessing that maybe he had found a “nice girl for himself” while his father sneered at the idea, and his brother remarked that “no girl has such shit taste, mom”. Matt would have wanted to prove them wrong, but he knew that he couldn't, so the only thing he could do was to deny and clench his teeth when his brother went on about how “if such a girl existed she would have to be a retard too”, barely holding back from punching him until he shut his mouth.

What eventually brought his happiness to an end, however, was his own carelessness.

Since he'd hanging around her for so long, no one at the park seemed to be questioning if he was someone close to her, or possibly a babysitter. So despite his paranoia about getting caught red-handed, Matt had gottenso used to holding her hand and patting her head and casually touching her in general that he didn't register how it would seem odd if anyone who knew her were to notice.

They were just outside the park, as it was summer and Matt had proposed to go get ice cream. He didn't want to get it from the bar at the park since that was where the teens would hang out, including her sister, so instead he took her to the one that was just across the street from the other entrance.

His princess had looked super cute, with her long wavy hair tied up in a ponytail and a blue summer dress which had dolphins on it. She had wanted a cone with vanilla and strawberry, and she was trying hard to eat it before it could leak all over her arm, with very little success.

When she finally had finished it all, she waved her hand towards him while complaining because she was all sticky.

“Look, I have ice cream everywhere! Ice cream in my hand, ice cream in my face, ice cream in my hair! Look, Mattie!”

Matt could not help but smile even as she pouted, grasping on her hand and pulling it closer to lick some of the melted ice cream off from her fingers. It tasted sweet, and just a tiny bit salty, and her eyes went wide.

“Eww, gross! Don't lick me!”. She stuck her tongue at him and he laughed.

“Excuse me”. The sudden, sharp voice from behind them made both gasp. Matt immediately let go of her wrist and turned, meeting the gaze of an unknown old woman.

“Christopher, who is this guy?”

“Uhm”. His princess glanced at him and at the woman, then quickly looked down at her own feet.

“Do you... know her?”. Matt was confused. Who was she? Why did she knew of his princess's name? This could be bad.

“He does”, the old woman intervened. “But I don't know _you_ , young man. Who are you, and what are you doing with Christopher?”.

“I-I'm just...just-”. He stuttered, feeling his neck warm up and his hands cover in sweat. “I'm just her...I'm friends with her sister. I w-was...watching her... him! I was watching him for a while”.

The woman's frown only deepened.

“Then where is Amanda?”.

“Aman...? Ah... she's... uh, the park? We're... we're going there now! Yeah. So, goodbye! Say goodbye Chriss...uh, buddy!”.

He could tell it from her face, from the way her jaw tightened and her eyes got narrow, she didn't believe him and if they stayed there it would up in trouble. He could see her following them to the door and standing there to watch them as they went back inside the park, as if to check that they'd actually go there.

Once he was helping her wash up at the fountain, his princess explained that the old woman was “Grandma Heather” but she wasn't really her grandma, just a nice lady that lived next door. Matt could guess that she was the nosy type. Better not to run into her again. Chrissy hadn't seemed too worry about it and Matt had tried not to be too, but he didn't like the way that woman had looked at him, like he was some dirty thing.

“ _She doesn't know anything!”_ , he had thought angrily, unable to relax thorough the rest of the day. His princess had tried to distract him, or so it felt at least, by insisting to play as “Shiori” and him as “the bad guy”. But he really did feel like a bad guy and he couldn't help but torment himself about it.

“You know I love you, right?”, he said after a while, holding her in his lap and nuzzling her soft hair.

“Mhm, yeah.”

“And does my princess love me?”

She quickly nodded and smiled.

“I love you, Mattie”.

His heart beat so fast that he thought it would explode in his chest. Surely she could feel it too.

“So you'll keep our secret, right?”.

“Mhm...”. She nodded again, but her voice didn't sound as confident this time. He tried not to let himself panic.

“They'll keep us apart if you don't”. He insisted. “And you won't have anyone to play with”.

“I know!”. Her tone sounded a bit annoyed, and she stiffened in his hold.

“Sorry, I just- I just really love you a lot. I don't want anyone to take you away from me. So please promise, ok?”.

“Ok Mattie”.

This time she sounded less hesitant, so he breathed in relief, but he still couldn't push his worry out of his mind.

If she were to be taken away...

He stiffened too.

He didn't know that he could handle it.

  
  


It didn't take more than a few days.

“People talk”. That was what his father always said.

Especially nosy old ladies.

“People talk”, and so did Christopher's sister, confessing about her negligence to their parents.

Learning about that incident, putting his sister's words together with their son's recent changes in behaviour, her parents slowly started to put two and two together.

Matt didn't blame Chrissy for talking. He knew she would not have wanted to, but they must have tricked her. They must have made her do it, just like when he didn't want to hug that doctor but he wouldn't let him have his toy if he didn't hug him so he gritted his teeth and let the other's crush him against his chest and envelop him in his smell of old paper and smoke. That must have been what they did.

When he learned of this, of course, it was too late. He'd tried going to the park to meet Chrissy but she hadn't been there, not even after he waited for her until the sky went dark. Then, as soon as he got back home, his parents were waiting for him and his mother looked like she'd been crying, while his father marched across the room and backhanded him so hard that he felt dizzy for a moment.

“You sick, fucking, pathetic excuse for a human being!”, the man had bellowed at him. “Is this how you fucking repay us?! You miserable little fuck!”.

The man hit him again and again and Matt tried to fight back, tried to ask his mother to stop him, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. She had started crying again, covering her face and walking away from them while Matt still called out to her.

They had gotten a call, and soon after that a visit from Christopher's parents, and that was how they found out that their son was a “fucking pedophile” and that he'd been “creeping on that poor boy” all this time and neither of them even knew about it.

Matt never saw his princess again after that, in fact he didn't really see anyone for a while.

He was pretty much locked in his room and both his computer and his TV had been confiscated, as well as his manga. The only thing he could do was to lay in bed and listen to his parents' screaming and arguing through the walls, trying to tell their words apart so he would know what to expect from his future. Maybe he would go to prison. Maybe his dad would really kill him. He didn't know, and he really wasn't sure if he should care. His princess was gone and now he was alone again, and this time he knew how much that hurt.

He'd never felt that kind of warmth before, but now that he did, he knew what he'd always been missing.

All children eventually grow up, but as for him, Matt had always felt like he never quite fully formed as a person.

Not until he had her.

Not until she was there for him.

And now, once she'd been taken away from him, his entire world had come crashing down on him.

  
  


Matt didn't go back to his school that year, nor the year after that.

Instead, he was provided with more-or-less standard education at the “institution” he was in, which to Matt seemed a lot more like a prison since he was being kept there against his will and he was forced to comply with what the staff said, no matter what.

In fact, maybe it was even worse than a prison, because at least then he would have known for how many years he'd be locked up. Instead everyone kept telling him he was there “for his own good” and that he would be let out “once he made enough progress”, whatever that meant.

He'd gotten all sorts of papers filled with questions when he was first brought there, questions that the doctors would ask him before noting down the answers for him, as if he could not do that himself. After that, one of the doctors asked him about what he'd done with Chrissy, which really made him angry because he kept bringing up all sorts of horrible things that he hadn't done as if he was expecting him to admit to them if he insisted hard enough.

He was asked over and over about why, and of what was going on in his mind as he was with her, and why he told her to keep it a secret, and it went on and on until Matt was so angry and humiliated that his face was covered in tears and he had started screaming and hitting his head with the hedge of his palms so it would drown out their voices.

Needless to say, he was held down and sedated until he stopped struggling. That was what would happen from then on, whenever he would get “too agitated” or he was deemed “uncooperative”.

Besides all the questioning and prodding, Matt was made to strip and visited all over, had his blood and urine taken, his pressure measured and even his brain was scanned at some point, though he was not told much about the results

Due to the reason why he was taken there, his sexual response was also tested, which pretty much meant that he was put in a room with a screen showing various sorts of erotic pictures or videos and had a device strapped to his penis to measure sexual response. Matt found the whole thing to be almost as humiliating and anxiety inducing as the initial questioning, and for the first few times he ended up being sedated and taken back to his room because he would violently resist the procedure.

His parents would come to visit him sometimes, though his father barely talked to him and seemed to mostly be there to discuss with the doctors. His mother did not say much either. She would only cry at first, especially the times where he was sedated or under the effect of some new medicine that they were trying on him.

Being sedated wasn't an uncommon occurrence, as Matt was often “uncooperative” at first. After all, he really could not see why he should be there. It wasn't his fault if other people could not understand how much he loved his princess! And he had never touched her in a wrong way or done anything to hurt her, so it was just unfair!

“It's good that you did not do that, Matthew. I don't think you are a bad person at all. I know that you think that you love that young boy, but you just need to understand why these feelings are wrong. You are still young yourself, so I'm confident we can redirect them in a healthy way if you just listen and try to understand”, was what the psychiatrist argued to him, his tone gentle and understanding but his words still pissing off Matt.

He didn't trust him. He didn't trust any of them. They were there to keep him away from his princess, and he knew if only could see her, if only he could get her to explain, maybe they would have seen that she loved him too and how wrong they'd been all along.

Over time, however, his will to resist slowly dwindled. At first he became almost completely unresponsive, prompting the doctors to lose interest in him in return, but then he saw something on TV during one of their breaks – the first animated episode of Magical Miracle Shiori.

He'd been waiting so eagerly for it to come out... he was waiting to watch it with her. He was sure that she had to be watching it in that same moment. Surely she was watching, and thinking of him... and waiting.

He realized then, he could not be stuck there forever. He could not let himself lose hope. His princess still needed him! She was still out there all alone, and surely she also felt the same pain that he did. She needed him and was waiting for him to come back and take her with him. For him to keep his promise.

But he could not keep his promise if he was stuck there in that place, so he would have to convince the doctors to let him out. And, in order to do so, he was going to have to “get better”. To show them that he could “lead a normal life”, no matter how hard it proved to be.

He could do it for her. And if he could not, well, then he would have to learn to fake it well enough to convince them at least.

  
  


Slowly the years passed. His father had stopped visiting him almost as soon as he turned eighteen.

Only his mother came, to bring him a cake and quietly wish him happy birthday. She still came there to see him, sometimes, but her eyes weren't warm when he tried to look at them, and if he pushed himself to hug her she grew tense, so he no longer tried to.

To think of all the times he'd forced himself to, only to make her happy...

Well, it was still a relief. For both of them.

  
  


His mother once used to ask the doctors how long till she could bring him back, but not any more.

At some point she had explained to him that it would probably be best if he never came back in fact, or anywhere around there.

“People talk, you know.”.

She could no longer go shopping without having to force herself to ignore the whispering. She had to start seeing a psychiatrist herself. She wished he'd known sooner, she said. Maybe they could have “fixed him” then. Maybe it was all her fault after all.

Matt didn't think that, but she didn't seem to care much for what he thought, so he did not bother to argue. It was useless anyway.

At least now she no longer cried, because she no longer had tears for him. The kid she mourned was gone. The adult in front of her was someone she felt obligated to sit down with and ask how he was doing and if the medicines were helping. If there were any of those “japanese comic books” that he wanted her to get him next time. If he was still studying.

“Your brother had to leave his university, you know. Everyone knew”.

The accusation in her voice was clear, but he couldn't bring himself to feel too bad. It had been years since he last saw Jeremy. He didn't even know what he looked like. He doubted that his brother missed him. Probably was happy that “the nutcase was locked up for good”. Probably wished it happened sooner.

“Maybe you can go stay with your aunt. She might need some help around the house. You can probably find some work to do around there. It's pretty far but... well, it's just best if it's not somewhere close, don't you think?”.

“People talk”.

People said all sorts of things, apparently. For example about how he might just not last long if he came back. About how, if they saw him anywhere around their children, something might “happen to him”.

Matt listened to what she said and hummed and nodded like he had learned to, “showing an empathetic emotional response”. He'd gotten better at doing that. His doctors seemed very proud.

He didn't actually care much for her ideas. He already knew what he would do. He'd looked into it. He could finish his studies outside, get a proper certification and then work on his own.

And then, it would be time to come back for his princess.

He did his best to listen to the doctors, to learn the things that would make them say that he was making progress, and to put them in practice. He was learning fast, much faster than when he was just doing it to not be punished.

Often it was hard, and sometimes he wanted to give up, but then he sat down and watched the recordings of his favourite show, thinking back to her as Shiori defeated the “bad guys” and smiling.

She would be so, so happy once he came back to her.

Many years had passed. Was she already “old enough” to marry? She surely would be once he was ready, wouldn't she?

He just had to learn to be “reliable” and “self-sufficient”. Get a proper job to support himself and his wife. Get a good house, somewhere quiet, somewhere where there would not be a lot of people to bother them. He was sure his princess would prefer it that way too.

A lot of time had passed already, but Matt was sure that she would wait. No matter how long it took, surely she would wait.

She would be there for him, for when he was unwell, and she would be soft and sweet and smell nice, just like he remembered.

And this time there would be no force on earth, nothing anyone could do that would keep him away from her.

Nothing at all.

He would make sure of it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome all sorts of feedback including constructive criticism. 
> 
> That said, if you take issue with the themes I write about, here or in other stories, here's the thing:
> 
> People from all walks of life can and will do questionable and outright harmful things no matter their circumstances, and that is a fact. Trying to stop people from depicting things that can and do happen will not make that any less of a fact.
> 
> Taking that into consideration, if you have problems with _what_ I portrayed in this story, I frankly don't care. If you have problems with _how_ I portrayed it, that's a whole other matter.


End file.
